


A Spider Inconvenience

by Emma_with_her_head_in_the_clouds



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Gen, Post-Spider-Man: Homecoming
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-20
Updated: 2018-07-20
Packaged: 2019-06-13 16:07:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,776
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15368253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emma_with_her_head_in_the_clouds/pseuds/Emma_with_her_head_in_the_clouds
Summary: Peter ends up spending the night at the compound after he breaks his leg. He expects a quiet night. He doesn't get it...





	A Spider Inconvenience

**Author's Note:**

> So this is set sometime after Homecoming, and before (/ignoring) Infinity War.
> 
> Thanks to Fauconnier who gave me inspiration for this story when we were planning "The Fieldtrip" fic

Peter swore he heard the sound of his tibia breaking. He winced, partly due to the noise, and partly due to the agonising pain that immediately followed. Fighting through the agony, he managed to get his brain to focus enough to web the guy whose boot had slammed his outstretched leg, before the man completely snapped his leg. Swinging his injured leg out of the way, trying to not disrupt the bones further, he pushed the already off-balanced man against the alley wall, and secured him there with a large amount of webbing.

Checking that the guy's criminal colleagues were all still secured, Peter shot a web at the top of the building and climbed up the wall in a weird abseiling hop, pulling himself up by the web with his arms, keeping attaching his good leg to the wall, and dangling the bad one below him.

He was pretty out of breath by the time he reached the top, the pain in his leg leaving him wanting to gasp for air. He lay himself down on the roof. He could hear sirens distantly approaching, probably coming to collect the robbers he'd just apprehended. Ideally he should be further away than just on the roof above them (he probably wasn't visible from the alleyway, but he couldn't say that for certain), but he couldn't bring himself to move any further right now.

"Peter, you appear to have a displaced fracture of your left tibia," Karen told him. "I would recommend seeking urgent medical attention. Would you like me to contact Mr Stark?"

"No…" Peter protested. He lifted his head slightly to try to look at his leg. The small movement made the pain in his leg so bad he thought he might be about to puke, or pass out. He gasped, trying to keep control of himself and catch his breath. "Ok, maybe, yes," he conceded.

He heard the dial tone in his mask for a few seconds, before the call was answered, and he heard Mr Stark's exasperated sigh.

"This better be good kid. I'm kind of busy right now."

"Oh… right… well…" Peter started, embarrassed and losing confidence in the phone call now. Maybe he shouldn't have called after all?

"FRIDAY…" he heard Mr Stark say, the billionaire clearly deciding not to wait for Peter to get a sentence out, bypassing him and getting the story from his A.I. instead. FRIDAY's Irish accent could be heard in the background, punctuated by Tony's groans and sighs.

"You broke your leg?!" Tony asked, this time to Peter (although somewhat rhetorically). "Give me a few minutes, I'll be right there. Don't go making it worse, or acquiring any other injuries in the meantime, can you?"

* * *

Tony placed Peter down on a bed in the compound med bay. Peter looked around, waiting for some of the medical team to come charging in, like he was used to on the occasions he'd had to visit the med bay before. But no one seemed to be coming.

"Where is everyone?"

"That's a slightly complicated answer. Apparently there's some kind of staffing problem today, someone's kid's sick or something? I don't know, I just pay the wages, I don't deal with all that kind of stuff. But luckily for you, I've finally managed to complete making this place fully automated. Well, not fully fully automated yet, but hopefully it should be able to deal with today's injury." With that, Tony started pressing some buttons on a nearby machine whilst Peter watched on, nervously. Of course he trusted Mr Stark's inventions, the man was a genius, it was just that healthcare seems like something that needs human input somehow.

"Oh…" Tony exclaimed after reading the monitor, sounding slightly surprised , "One thing it seems to think would be better with human input is reducing the fracture in your leg." He glanced at Peter. "This is going to hurt kid."

Peter screamed briefly as Tony put a sideways force onto his leg, straightening. Afterwards he gasped big gulps of air. An oxygen mask automatically deployed from the wall onto his face, making him flinch slightly.

"The leg should be fine to be casted now. Will you be ok if I leave you? The machines will deal with the cast, and FRIDAY's there if you need anything."

"You're leaving?" Peter didn't mean to sound quite as clingy as he did, but to be honest, he was quite surprised. Mr Stark usually stuck around when he was being treated after an injury.

"It's just that I've got a gala tonight, and I really need to get ready. I'll come back in a short while. Will you be alright on your own?"

"Oh, right. Sure," Peter replied pretty flatly. The whole interaction this evening felt a little… empty. Mr Stark hadn't even tried to give him a lecture. What's more, he was still in the Iron Man suit, which was strange, because he usually stepped out of it as soon as they arrived at the compound.

"Why are you still in the suit?" He decided to ask.

"Because I've not got anything on underneath this," Tony replied. "Not like that!" he clarified after seeing Peter's face, "I have underwear on. Just not, you know, clothes."

"Why?"

"Because I was halfway through getting changed when I had to come and save your sorry ass, and I didn't want to put on my suit in the suit, it'd get all creased!"

"Oh… right."

"Yeah. So if there's no other questions, I'm going to change out of my suit into my suit. Oh, you know what I mean!"

* * *

The feeling of having your leg put in plaster by a robot was weird, but Peter couldn't fault its programming. It did a good job. Peter had just finished persuading it that he didn't need any other intervention, and was sat on the side of the bed, when Tony returned, this time wearing a black tie suit, rather than an Iron Man suit.

"All fixed up? Right, how are we going to get you home? I'd get Happy to give you a lift home, but he's meant to be giving me a lift in a minute. I could get you an Uber, but that's maybe not a good idea. And obviously, I can't get an Uber…"

"Can't I stay here?"

"What?"

"Can't I stay here overnight? If May sees my leg in a cast, she'll freak out. But hopefully by tomorrow it might be just about healed enough to take the cast off."

"You can't stay here on your own! Maybe if Rhodey or Vision was around, but they're both away at the minute."

"Please! I promise I won't cause any trouble. I'll probably just watch some TV in my room, then go to bed. And FRIDAY will be watching, and you know I don't want to end up in her bad books again…" (Peter paused to think about an incident a few weeks ago).

"Still. I don't know for certain, but I have the feeling it's against mentor protocol to leave said mentee in the house on their own overnight."

"I won't be alone. I'll have FRIDAY. And Dum-E, and Butterfingers…"

"Fine! You win! But I am officially denying responsibility for this. If anything happens, it's all on your head and I'm going to claim that I didn't know you were here and that you're a little stowaway!"

"Deal," Peter agreed, holding out his hand. Tony shook it, then left the room after giving him once last look, which appeared to say "you better not make me regret this…"

* * *

Peter was sat on the sofa in lounge nearest his room. He'd eaten his way through a whole bag of Doritos, which was the only thing he'd found in the kitchen cupboard. Hopefully no one would miss them; Vision was the only one who lived in this part of the compound currently (aside from Peter on the rare occasions he stayed over), and he doesn't eat, so presumably he wouldn't mind. If it came down to it, Peter could always claim he needed the energy to feed his enhanced metabolism so it could get to work on healing his leg. The film he'd been watching (Blade Runner, something he'd been meaning to see for ages but hadn't got round to before, and had found highly disappointing after all that wait), had just finished and he was thinking about calling it a night and going to bed, when suddenly all the power in the room shut off.

"FRIDAY?" Peter asked to the ceiling. No reply. Presumably that meant FRIDAY was down too. That was concerning. He was fairly certain the compound was designed to not have simple power cuts, which meant that there was a good chance it was under attack. And Peter was here alone. With a broken leg. Not good.

He considered whether he should try calling Mr Stark. He'd probably be angry. But then again, he'd be angry if he didn't call. A catch-22. He sighed and took out his phone. It didn't light up. Damn. It was out of battery. He'd noticed it was pretty low earlier but had forgotten to put it on charge. He searched around the room for a phone charger, surprisingly finding one in a drawer. He plugged his phone in. Nothing happened. Oh, right, the power was out. Yeah, so making a phone call wasn't happening right now. Hopefully Mr Stark might already know that something was going down anyway. His watch would probably alert him that FRIDAY was down or something.

Peter's next idea was to put the suit on. He could hardly optimally Spider-Man with his leg in a cast, but he'd still feel safer in his suit. It would help protect his identity for one thing. Where did he leave it? He took it off before the machine plastered his leg, so it would probably still be in the med bay. At the other side of the compound. Great.

He set off crawling along the ceiling, dangling his broken leg. It probably looked weird, but it felt more natural than trying to hop along on the crutches the med bay had insisted he take. It was slow going, particularly because he kept stopping to listen and check he couldn't hear anything. His spidey-sense remained at a low background hum, indicating that something was happening, but he wasn't currently in any imminent danger.

He arrived at the med bay without coming across anything out of the ordinary, besides the fact everything was shut down. That and how all the doors were open; he would have thought security protocols would have them lock when the power went down. He changed into his suit; it looked strange, bulging out over his cast, making it appear he had one leg bigger than the other, but at least he didn't have any difficulty getting it over the cast.

Now Peter had to decide what to do next. Should he go looking for the cause of the power cut? He wasn't entirely sure where the main power inlet or whatever for the compound was, or where it could be turned off from. He could try looking for intruders. Maybe near the entrance to the building? Perhaps he should protect whatever they were most likely to be targeting? He wasn't sure, but Mr Stark's lab would be a good guess; it housed his Iron Man suits amongst other things, and you could access the computer system with all his blueprints etc from there. Of course, another suggestion would be that Peter should go hide somewhere as far away as possible. He had the feeling that would be the suggestion that Mr Stark might make. He wasn't going to do it though. Spider-Man didn't cower, even if he happened to have a broken leg.

In the end he decided he would head towards Mr Stark's lab. The med bay was quite near the main entrance, so he might well come across any intruders on his way, even if that wasn't their planned destination. He crawled along the ceiling, trying to keep to the shadows and not let his broken leg dangle too much. It would probably be a good idea to stay concealed, giving him the element of surprise.

He was probably around halfway to the lab when he started to make out quiet whispering up ahead. He tried to be as quiet as possible, but wanted to keep going so he could catch them up. By the time he was able to see the two figures in the distance, they'd stopped talking (and he hadn't been able to make out anything they'd said), but at least they didn't seem to be onto him. They were both dressed in black, potentially military-style wear, but not necessarily. It was hard to tell from behind, but neither appeared to be carrying weapons, not in their arms anyway (but he wouldn't be surprised if they had some concealed on their person).

When he was getting quite close, the taller of the two suddenly turned round towards Peter. Peter froze, but the man turned back round again, presumably satisfied that no one was following (having not thought to pay too much attention to the ceiling (which Peter had pressed himself against).

After that close call, Peter realised he couldn't risk getting much closer before making a move. He took a deep breath then quickly shot out webs at the two men's ankles and pulled backwards, causing both to fall over. Taking advantage of their temporary confusion, he told Karen to turn on web grenade, and used it to try and stick the pair to the floor.

"What the hell!?" one of them exclaimed. He started trying to pull on the webbing. "You've got to be kidding me, not this stuff again!"

So it's someone I've fought before, Peter thought to himself. Oh no, I hope it's not part of the Vulture's gang having another go at getting their hands on Mr Stark's stuff!

The one on the right (the one who'd turned round earlier) seemingly had managed to pull himself free. Peter hadn't had chance to properly secure them, but still, he shouldn't have been able to get loose, not that quickly anyway. This time the man looked upwards, spotting Peter and staring at him.

"Erm, Steve, little help?" his colleague asked.

Steve!?

Peter and Steve made eye contact, and Peter realised he recognised the face starring back at him. It might be dark, and he might have a beard now, but Peter was pretty certain. He was looking at Captain America.

* * *

It was meant to be an easy mission, just Steve and Sam. Bucky was still in cryo-sleep in Wakanda, and even if he wasn't, it wouldn't be a good idea to bring him. If things went wrong and they ended up coming across Tony, Bucky being there would almost certainly make him a hundred times more angry than he would be anyway. Clint was with his family. The same for Scott, plus he didn't have his suit (although he was meant to be a great burglar even before; but on the other hand he did get caught, so can't have been that great). Wanda had been pretty traumatised by her time on the Raft, and they didn't want to risk her getting caught and having to go through that again. And Natasha? She said she wasn't getting involved (yet she did arrange to make sure no staff were at the compound that night.

They'd chosen this particular night because Rhodey and Vision would be out of town, and Tony would be attending a well publicised gala, so the compound would be empty. Their mission: to infiltrate and retrieve their stuff; Cap's shield, Falcon's wings, Antman's suit and Hawkeye's favourite bow. They would shut down FRIDAY (having been informed the secret backdoor Tony had told Steve about once was still active; Tony having likely forgotten all about it, considering he was pretty drunk at the time), turn off the power, get their stuff and get out. Easy.

Turns out it wasn't so easy. And the compound wasn't empty…

* * *

"Captain America!? What are you doing here?"

"We could ask you the same question, Spider-Man," the other man answered for him. Peter hadn't quite worked out who he was yet.

"Me? I'm meant to be here! He's a war criminal now! And so are you…?" Peter answered. Even with the mask, the men could tell he was still trying to work out whether Sam was one of the other Rogue Avengers, and if so, which one."

"Falcon! I'm Falcon dude!" Sam informed him to save him the bother of working it out.

"Oh right, yeah, of course!" Peter replied with enthusiasm, now the mystery was solved. "But you still haven't answered my question. What are you doing here? You're not welcome here, after everything. After what you did to Mr Stark." He directed that last point at Cap with what he hoped came across as an angry glare.

"We just came to collect our stuff, then we'll be gone again," Steve told him, in his best diplomatic voice.

"I can't let you do that,"

"Come on son, we don't want to fight you,"

"I'm not your son! And if you recall, I held my own in Germany. I'll do what it takes to defend this compound."

 

At this point, Sam decided that talking clearly wasn't going to get them anywhere, and tried to make a grab for Spider-Man whilst he was hopefully distracted. But his spidey-sense was too quick, and he leapt out of the way, leaving Sam to land in a heap on empty floor. Peter jumped back up onto the ceiling. He fired a web at Steve but the super-soldier managed to dodge it. Sam made a leap, trying to pull Spider-Man off the roof. Peter swung his legs round, but the casted leg was more unwieldy than he was used to, so it made contact with Sam's arm. Both of them yelled out in pain.

"What the hell?" Sam asked. "Why is your leg so hard? And so big?"

Peter was busy having another go at webbing Captain America, who had decided the best idea was to dash down the corridor, and either distract Spider-Man, or get away and grab their stuff. Peter managed to stick him to a wall, but by the time he had ceiling crawled to catch up with him, the man had got free again. It became a game of cat-and mouse, with Cap trying to dodge Peter's webs, and Peter trying to catch up with him before the super-soldier escaped from any webs that had entrapped him. Sam chased after them. He was just about to make another grab at the arachnoid vigilante when he turned round and fired a web grenade at him, sticking Sam to the floor once more.

The three of them had continued their dance nearly to Tony's lab (where the mechanic had stashed the Captain's iconic shield), when the sound of repulsers suddenly could be heard in the distance. Peter and Steve turned towards the sound first (their super-hearing clearly outclassing Sam's ordinary auditory abilities). All three of them stopped their fight to watch Iron Man fly round the corner.

"Underroos, what the hell is going on…?" He asked, then stopped on recognising one of the men stood underneath his protégée. "Cap." He announced, in a voice colder than Peter had ever heard him use.

"Tony." Cap replied, in a voice which he was trying to make sound professional, but had undertones of embarrassment, and maybe even fear.

"What are you doing here!?" Tony demanded.

"We came for our stuff."

"I tried to tell them to leave, Mr Stark," Peter added.

"You shouldn't have had to. And you shouldn't be fighting on that leg."

"What's wrong with his leg?" Falcon asked. Tony turned to acknowledge the man was even there for the first time.

"It's broken. Not only have you two broken in here and picked a fight with my kid, you've picked a fight with a crippled kid. Where's your honour now ey Cap?"

"I'm not a cripple!" Peter exclaimed at the same time as both Steve and Sam asked "Your kid???"

"Head over to the medbay Pete, so you can check you haven't done any more damage to your leg. I'll deal with these two," Tony told him, trying to keep his voice calm and even for Peter. "You did well kid."

Peter stayed and looked between the men before accepting Mr Stark's request and reluctantly crawling away.

* * *

When Peter got to the medbay, the computer was still down due to the power cut. He wondered whether he should stay there, or return to Mr Stark. Just as he was about to leave, the power came back on, and FRIDAY instructed him to stay there and get his leg checked.

The medbay computer reckoned that Peter had disrupted the healing of his tibia slightly, but luckily it wasn't displaced, and still should be much better by the morning, as long as he rested it from now on. Peter sat there for a while, not sure what to do now. He wondered about asking FRIDAY what was happening, but he wasn't sure whether she would tell him.

Eventually Mr Stark walked in. Peter was relieved to see him. He looked tired, the bow tie of his suit loose around his neck, and his hair messed up from repeatedly running his fingers through it.

"They're gone."

"Where? Did you…?" Peter started to ask, wondering if Mr Stark had shopped his former colleagues into the authorities out looking for them.

"No, I didn't hand them over. Probably should have done, but I didn't. I told them to take their stuff and get out, and not to come back."

"You let them take their stuff?"

"They'd only try coming back for it again. This way they won't bother us again." Peter nodded, not sure what else to say. He could see the sadness in his mentor's face, never mind how much he was trying to hide it. "Come on Spider-kid, lets get you to bed. I need to get at least one part of being a mentor right this evening."

He put his arm round Peter to help him hop along to his bedroom. Peter appreciated the help, but thought that there was maybe more to the gesture, considering how much Mr Stark usually avoided personal contact. He didn't say anything, but gave him a subtle hug before letting go when they'd deposited him at his room.

"Goodnight Mr Stark."

"Night kid."


End file.
